Albums of the Year! From 25 Years Ago! What Were They Thinking?!

Did you used to look forward to magazine end of year best-of lists? The magazine I bought every week when I was a teenager was Kerrang! magazine – and (true to form for someone of the highest geekery such as myself) I read every issue from cover to cover.

And I would look forward to the end of year lists hugely. I know that, because when I finally chucked away all my copies of Kerrang! in the nineties, I actually cut out the end of year lists and kept them safe in a drawer, in case they should ever come in handy. I know. It’s tragic isn’t it?

The end-of-year lists were important though. Firstly, it was a measure of taste. How did I measure up to the venerable journalists of the nation’s finest music paper? Was my utter devotion to Tesla’s Mechanical Resonance a normal thing, or was it, in fact, unspeakably naff?

Secondly, Kerrrang! would list each individual journalist’s choices for the year. This would allow me to a) see which writer had a similar taste to mine by counting how many shared albums we had and b) see if I had somehow overlooked anything good.

I can see that the seventeen year old me had written in black biro the exact number of albums that I owned next to each journalist’s name. Kerrang’s Editor (and current editor of Classic Rock Magazine) Geoff Barton had just one record that I owned in his top twenty: Metallica’s$5.98 EP. Steve “Krusher” Joule had nine. Sylvie Simmons on the other hand had twelve and Mick Wall had fifteen!

Places 5-20 of Kerrang’s Albums of 1987. Note the number inscribed next to each journalist’s name, indicating how many albums I owned by each. Very sad.

It is fun to apply hindsight to the list. Appetite For Destruction was a lowly fourth, behind Aerosmith’s Permanent Vacation in first place, Whitesnake’s 1987 in second and Anthrax’s Among The Living in 3rd. It wasn’t until the following year that the album went stratospheric, but I guess it was still a decent showing for a debut album. It’s fair to say that neither Permanent Vacation nor Whitesnake’s 1987 have aged as well as Appetite For Destruction. I bought the US import of the Whitesnake album, because it had a better track listing. It still wouldn’t have made my top ten of that year – I remember being pretty disappointed with the change of direction Coverdale had taken. Looking back, I’m not sure why.

There is no Husker Du on the list. On anyone’s list. No Pixies. Hard rock was still very segregated from punk. Faith No More released their first album that year. It’s nowhere. Black Sabbath showed just how unfashionable they were as Eternal Idol did nothing to convince even Kerrang! it was one of the twenty best records of the year. And Dio’s Dream Evil was roundly ignored by the critics. And as for Bruce Willis’ The Return of Bruno: criminally overlooked!

Bryan Adams with Kerrang’s Album of 1985

Going back to 1986 and 1985 is also fun. Kerrang’s best album of 1985? Bryan Adams’ Reckless. Kate Bush was at #2! There’s a band there called Jason and the Scorchers. No, me neither. The newly reformed original line-up of Aerosmith had a new record called Done With Mirrors. It didn’t sell too well and most people had written them off, but there they were at number three…maybe they’d limp on and do another record?

It’s actually the albums of 1986. Clearly no-one at Kerrang! Magazine even knew what year it was…

The albums of 1986 (helpfully titled 1987 in Kerrang that year for some reason) include Peter Gabriel’s So at #5, but David Lee Roth’s Eat ‘Em And Smilejust beat Slayer’s Reign In Blood and Metallica’s Master of Puppets to the number one slot. Journalists loved David Lee Roth because he always gave them something good to write about, and it did feature Steve Vai’s big league debut. I preferred 5150, languishing at #16. Megadeth added to the emergence of the Big Four with their Peace Sells album at #6, showing how thrash metal had become Big News. And The Beastie Boys’ Licensed To Ill and Run DMC’s Raising Hell both crossed over into the rock world.

More albums of 1986

Bafflingly from my sixteen year old perspective, there was no Orgasmatron, Night Songs, Russian Roulette, Inside The Electric Circus, or Seventh Star…but there was Billy Idol…

Hindsight is always 20/20. Whitesnake 1987 is one I still enjoy. Aerosmith…not so much. But didn’t Faith No More release their second album in 87? Wasn’t We Care A Lot in 1986? Regardless the second album was much better anyway.

I saw the Aerosmith ‘Done With Mirrors’ tour. It was actually right before the album came out and was called the ‘Back In the Saddle’ tour. It was my first front row experience!
I also saw the ‘Rock In a Hard Place’ tour years earlier without Joe Perry. It was still great! Steven was in overload.
Both great albums.

Lists and opinions are like A** H***s….everybodys got one. Obviously magazines are in the biz of selling magazines so their lists may be slightly skewed towards that end! I never enjoyed those lists cuz they didnt reflect what I listened to and tend to reflect pop culture.

True that. I still liked the lists though – even though they didn’t match what I thought. But then a couple of friends recently told me their top ten albums for this year and we must have named twenty five albums between us…

I agree everyone has different ideas! I really like the guitarist John Sykes on Whitesnake’s album if some of the songs are a little sleepy. Love the DLR and Aerosmith. I think Tesla is an album I lost a lot of love for over the years even though pretty good stuff.

Oohhh I love a good year-end list! That’s great that you kept these. I have limitless love for Whitesnake’s 1987 so I don’t mind it’s high listing one iota. Permanent Vacation still holds up… but maybe not that much! And I have heard of Jason and the Scorchers! Heard of… not actually heard. I’d rate Eat ‘Em and Smile over 5150 personally but both great albums.

I love 1987. It’s one of my all-time Top 10. I got it on tape when it came out and still love it as much as I ever did! I can see why fans of there older stuff might not have been keen on it but I got that first and then worked my way back.

I would have liked 1987 better if Geffen made better quality cassette tapes. Unfortunately they didn’t, and my copy of 1987 wowed and faded in and out awful. My copy of Slide It In was even worse! And in Canada, I didn’t know about any albums prior to that, but they were reissued soon and we found them all at a local store. I remember a buddy of mine pointed to the copy of Live In The Heart of the City, right at Mickey Moody with that big hat of his. “Are you SURE this is the same band??”

It wasn’t hard to get into Slide It In after 1987… but it was a while before I understood the other earlier albums. Ready and Willing was the one that won me over. Saints and Sinners, I’m still not that fussed about actually.

I knew the early stuff – Fool For Your Loving was an early hit – and so was a fan of the bluesier, Purplely stuff. Come and Get It was great…
But Slide It In is my favourite – a blend of what they were and what they became.

I was only just starting to get into Rock music (well, music full stop!) when 1987 came out so I didn’t really know anything about them. I definitely preferred the glossier stuff when I was that age. I remember seeing Casey Kasem on America’s Top 10 describing Coverdale as ex-Deep Purple and I had no idea! I thought he’d slipped up! Slide It In and 1987 are my two favourites of theirs for sure.

Quality sub-editing on the 86′ list at Kerrang! (hehe don’t remember that but very funny). Very interesting to look back on this as was when I really cared about this stuff – I remember was outraged they put DLR’s album at No.1, which I thought was crap ahead of the mighty Maiden, QR, Slayer and Magnum – I love all these albums to this day so maybe its something about the 16 year old brain?!